The Valley Hospital's move from Ridgewood to Paramus beginning to take shape

Valley Hospital's President & CEO of Valley Health System, Audrey Meyers announces that two gifts from the Bolger Foundation and an anonymous donor will give $35 million to Valley Hospital for the new Paramus facility, photographed at the main lobby of Valley Hospital in Ridgewood on 08/15/18.
Mitsu Yasukawa/Northjersey.com

Valley Hospital is set to present their conceptual plans for a 372-bed facility on Winters Avenue in Paramus on Feb. 7.

The Valley Hospital's move from Ridgewood to Paramus is starting to take shape, with hearings before the borough Planning Board expected to begin next month.

Valley has proposed to build a state-of-the-art hospital on a 20-acre Winters Avenue parcel, between Route 17 and the Garden State Parkway, just 2.5 miles from the current campus.

The Paramus site was chosen after a decade-long fight to expand in Ridgewood, where Valley's proposals were met with fierce opposition from residents, who feared its plan was too grandiose for its residential neighborhood setting. Valley's relocation after 67 years in Ridgewood appears to be welcome among residents and officials in both towns.

This map shows the location of the proposed new Valley Hospital in Paramus.(Photo: Map courtesy of The Valley Hospital.)

Planning Board Chairman Peter Caminiti said the Valley application is scheduled to be heard during the Feb. 7 board meeting, if the applicant is ready, and special meetings for the application will be scheduled from then on.

If there are no variances, he estimates hearings may last only four to five months. But if there are lengthy, arguable variances, hearings could take a year or longer, he said.

Construction of the $735 million campus is expected to take 3 and a half years; Valley anticipates the hospital will open in 2023. The Ridgewood campus is expected to remain open and serve as an urgent care center, lab and endoscopy center and provide other outpatient services.

Valley already has the Luckow Pavilion on Winters Avenue, a three-story cancer center and same-day surgery center just off of Route 17. In 2012, it purchased a 3.6-acre site with a building that housed the New Jersey Children’s Museum, which closed in 2014.

This month, the borough Planning Board approved renovations to the former museum and an adjacent lot that will serve as support for the proposed new medical center.

The building at 599 Valley Health Plaza will be renovated and used for engineering and information services, office space, storage of emergency supplies and tools, a biomedical lab, education services, a mobile intensive care unit and parking for ambulances.

That lot is combined with 611 Valley Health Plaza, a parking lot that will continue to be used as such.

The most noticeable improvement on the site will be the addition of a canopy on the building to cover 10 ambulance spaces, said Alexander Lapatka, an engineer for the applicant.

"We're cleaning up and modernizing it into an up-to-date facility," Lapatka said. "It's tired and we're making an improvement."

The building will house 65 employees, including two overnight ambulance drivers. The site will include 349 parking spaces.

The parking lot is currently used as off-site parking for the Ridgewood campus and will be until the Paramus campus is finished. Spaces are also shared with neighboring Retro Fitness, per a condition when the gym was approved. That agreement will remain in place.

Though the approved plan required two variances – one for percentage of impervious coverage and one for percentage of greenery – Valley will improve both conditions with the renovation and the lot will be fully complying once the entire hospital campus is approved, Lapatka said.